Susanna Ratsavong was asked by Julia Park, a friend and member of Community for Change, to speak at this event to hold space for what happened in Georgia, and to condemn the escalating verbal and violent hate crimes impacting our Asian American and Pacific Islander neighbors. The event was sponsored by Community for Change and the Colonial Area Anti-Racism and Social Equity Alliance. The event was attended by some estimates of upwards of 200 people. It was covered by news crews at ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC.

I am newly working with a coalition of organizations and community leaders to take action toward the needs of the local Asian community in a time of unprecedented attention amid the significant increase of racism toward the community. As a young leader in the community, I recognize the importance of standing up and speaking out for those communities in need. For more information on the recent surge of anti-Asian sentiments and its impact, one can start with a visit to Stop AAPI Hate.

Right is the video of the event as recorded by fellow speaker Mayor Jenna Antoniewicz of Royersford Borough of Montgomery County. You can hear Susie speak at 23:30.

Below is the original intended text of Susie’s speech, not including adjustments made at the event:

My name is Susie, and I’m here under sad but also hopeful circumstances as I see you all here today. Thank you for making space to hear these experiences.  And I hope some part of what I have to say resonates with you beyond your future memory of the tragic events of this past week and that this sad moment in history will be the bottom of a more positive arc to come.

We are here to have a vigil and it dawned on me today that a vigil is defined as quiet wakefulness—a time to be present and aware. So I thank you for your awareness and presence—coming to make space for those who suffer. But I apologize that I will not remain so quiet.

This whole notion of apology is very interesting to me. It is a bit of my Midwestern way—OPE! Excuse me!—when I am doing absolutely nothing needing of apology. Oh, I’m sorry for that happening. Something I am apologizing for on behalf of someone else’s transgressions. It is a quiet kind of kindness and empathy we offer to others. It is the sorrowful apology we offer to those who suffered last week and those who suffer among us today.

I was asked by some leaders to educate them on the issue, and this really drove home what these quiet apologies have really morphed into: a silent acceptance, so much so that people among us are surprised to hear that we suffer anything at all. That is the complicated hatefulness we are combatting: a vein of disdain of others that do not exemplify sufficient proximity to whiteness. A disdain of another person’s humanity so ingrained in us that some of us might need someone like me to identify it.

It’s why representation matters. Seeing someone who looks like me in leadership roles is encouraging—itself fighting deeply rooted ideas and policies encouraging non-belonging based on the color of my skin.

Which is why when I saw Jenna’s Instagram profile show up, and see that she was an elected official in my own county—I just had to reach out to her. Thank goodness she and I also happen to hit it off! Because don’t forget, there is a diversity of experiences within the pan Asian moniker. I am Lao. I look different than Jenna. She is Korean. But we are all considered just Asian to many people, or sometimes, all Chinese—or even worse, gee, I don’t know, you know, one of “them”.

Because of this, while I am not all Asian people, when I behave, I am constantly aware that my actions are a reflection of all Asian people to someone. This is the burden, the tax I pay, by virtue of the color of my skin. I take particular care to filter myself. And this type of silencing of myself only benefits the oppressor; and as confident as I am in myself, I constantly look through this lens.

This so what it looks like to be the victim of systemic oppression. Like me. To carry myself forward in fear of exhibiting impropriety—of my speech, my food, my heritage’s culture—of my personhood because it might actually paint whole groups of people that look like me in a “bad” light—but to whom?

For better and sometimes worse, since being identified as a candidate for office, the word diversity is something used liberally by myself and by others. I want to take a moment to illustrate how words, even friendly ones, matter. That when you use diversity, I hope that it references the diversity and depth of experiences that I carry with me. When I bring color to new spaces—the color of vivacity, the color of my energy, the color of my perspective, and not just the color of my skin.

But as we know there are harsher words out there with direct and hateful purpose.

This past year we’ve heard the terms “Kung flu”; “Chinese” virus; it’s the “Chinese’s” fault, using the thin veil of Xenophobia to hide the true intent—putting a target on the backs of Asian Americans for the benefit of white men hiding their own political and managerial failures. After the November election, my father reminded me to “be careful out there.” He did not have to say exactly what I had to be careful of to know what he meant. Worse yet, the rhetoric itself is being covered as a matter of fact; it is the equivalent of calling all Asian people derogatory names repeatedly with no censorship by the media or remorse by those who speak them

And there’s also some in between words.

Words used to bristle and hesitate to making statements about the value of my personhood when brought to elected officials. Words of uncertainty that convey to me a question mark about whether my personhood is deserving of that dignity. These pregnant pauses when addressing my experience—I’ve experienced these all my life.

And then a lack of words. Silence.

The silence when I walk by a bar teeming of drunk and not drunk men and women, when one person yells “Hey go back to your own country?” Can you imagine what it feels like to not only be told you don’t belong but like you will never belong? There is no place for me here—because of how I look?

These stories will not be reported. They will not be recorded. They will not have resolutions. But they sadly continue to persist.

But why are some of us silent ourselves? Because we still have to live. And many of us, particularly our elders, have found resilience in silence and assimilation. But have you considered that perhaps this silence is a matter of surrender—surrender to the whiteness that controls us.

To this, I have surrendered. To those who don’t look like me: Silence by me is a coping mechanism. Silence by you is complicity.

I’ve been asked to lead us all in a moment of silence. But I want in the silence for all to be heard. First I turn to all of my fellow Asian community members here. Please, raise your hand if you have ever experienced an incident of racism. To anyone else, please raise your hand if you have ever felt you have been discriminated against for any reason. Look around. See that hateful rhetoric and culture has an impact. For all those whose hands are not yet raised. I urge you to think deep in your memories and raise your hand if you have ever been silent in the face of witnessing wrongdoing. Look around.

I do this to remind everyone that we recognize that you won’t be able to use your voice every time.

But there is also good silence: I always remember the story of my mom who, in the first 3 months of her life here, were placed in an apartment where unknowing strangers silently coordinated and left groceries regularly at their door until they could figure out their next steps. That was the 80s. They may never know me, and I them, but their silent acts of humanity live with me.

And so, now, the actual moment of silence. Let us fall silent:

To honor the silence the death knell tolls for those 8 people killed in Georgia.

And to honor the silent victims among us.

In honor of the silence many among us hold in the face of the brutality that generations before have brought upon the whole of us.

To remind those who are silent in the face of wrongdoing that silence is the space in which hate and indignation festers.

20 seconds of silence.

This is the quiet alarm. May we be proud to be loud in the future.